The Mountain Lion, Jean Stafford
The Mountain Lion, Jean Stafford
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The Mountain Lion

Author: Jean Stafford

Narrator: Elisabeth Rodgers

Unabridged: 6 hr 57 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 02/08/2020

Synopsis

Eight-year-old Molly and her ten-year-old brother Ralph are inseparable, in league with each other against the stodgy and stupid routines of school and daily life; against their prim mother and prissy older sisters; against the world of authority and perhaps the world itself.One summer they are sent from the genteel Los Angeles suburb that is their home to back-country Colorado, where their uncle Claude has a ranch. There the children encounter an enchanting new world—savage, direct, beautiful, untamed—to which, over the next few years, they will return regularly, enjoying a delicious double life. And yet at the same time this other sphere, about which they are both so passionate, threatens to come between their passionate attachment to each other. Molly dreams of growing up to be a writer, yet clings ever more fiercely to the special world of childhood. Ralph for his part feels the growing challenge, and appeal, of impending manhood. Youth and innocence are hurtling toward a devastating end.

About Jean Stafford

Jean Stafford (1915–1979) was the author of three novels, Boston Adventure, The Mountain Lion, and The Catherine Wheel, as well as a body of acclaimed short fiction, available in The Collected Stories of Jean Stafford. She was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1970.

About Elisabeth Rodgers

Elisabeth Rodgers is an actress and AudioFile Earphones Award–winning narrator. After graduating from Princeton University, she completed a two-year program at William Esper Studio, where she studied with Maggie Flanigan. Her audiobook narration training came from Robin Miles, who has also directed her in several productions. She has recorded dozens of books for a multitude of publishers.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Lark on September 30, 2020

Perfect, but also, perfectly upsetting. This novel belongs on a very short shelf of novels written for adults that remind us of what a feral and terrifying experience it is to be a child.* I'm very unsettled just now at the power of Stafford's vision. I'm glad I'm not in total agreement with her nih......more

Goodreads review by James on February 08, 2023

4.5 stars — This is for everyone who was ever a precocious, sensitive, melodramatic, and let's face it, sometimes harshly judgmental little brat growing up. I've always been annoyed and perplexed by the way childhood gets sentimentalized in our culture. Sure, there's an "innocence" and perpetual sen......more

Goodreads review by Dax on May 18, 2019

I was expecting a coming-of-age story set in the beautiful mountains of Colorado: a pleasant jaunt as two siblings battled the confusion of growing out of childhood. What we get instead is a disturbing story of two kids on different trajectories: one accepting the path to adulthood and the other cli......more

Goodreads review by Jesse on October 07, 2021

I kept wondering if this'd manage to pull itself together by the end—and OH BOY DOES IT. 😳 [Read #1 of "2021: My Year of (Mostly) Midcentury Women Writers"]......more

Quotes

“One of the best novels about adolescence in American literature.” New York Times

“A terrific book, witty and smart as Stafford always was, and kind in its treatment of these two strangely irresistible children.” Washington Post

“Stafford’s masterpiece…A subtly and brilliantly realized tragedy of adolescence.” New York Times Book Review

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